Just think of where we could be as a nation if some of the people spending years in prison for a nonviolent drug offense could have, instead, studied sustainable architecture or climate change adaptation?

What is important here is that Mr. Williams made a swift, contrite and very public apology. It takes courage to go before several million people, and say without excuse or blame, "I was wrong. I am sorry."

For the U.S. federal government to effectively build its cyber workforce of the future, agencies must consider adopting new approaches and technologies to streamline critical aspects of recruiting, hiring, workforce planning, and training.

An important suicide prevention bill for veterans, derailed at the end of the last Congress, is back on the fast track. The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans (SAV) Act was unanimously passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month and the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs just last week. Now, we are counting on the Senate to act quickly and send it to the president.

One can only hope that Ashton Carter has moved past his glib endorsements of Donald Rumsfeld's disingenuous "group think" and Neil McElroy's outright distortion of the truth and on to a personal code of conduct where speaking truth to power is not seen as a vice, but rather a virtue.

When President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joseph Biden at the side of the stage, announced the resignation of Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary on November 24, it came as a surprise to many people in the Washington, DC area.

The media was wrong, and the White House was right. Still, many of us in the media won't admit it. Therefore, I'd like to apologize to you. We should probably make a better effort to understand policy, before we attempt to comment on it. And we should probably also admit, once and for all, that the President was born in America.

Last week, the Air Force unveiled its latest technological innovation. With a fleet of Nissan Leafs, Ford F-series trucks, and other vehicles, the Air Force took an important step that may eventually revolutionize how we think about the cars we drive and the way we keep the lights on.

Am I describing the entire enlisted force, past and present? Not at all. But that's the point. We are not all the same. Taking the veteran moniker doesn't change that. What I'm getting to is this: Stop "other"-ing us.

What makes one country more important than another? That's a crucial question to ask when it comes to Libya. The U.S. is now prioritizing the fight against ISIS through airstrikes over Iraq and Syria. But what about the country we were so focused on three years ago?

It was our duty, they said. The government wouldn't lie to us. Serving our country would make men of us. We didn't know what war was, but we would find out. And we did. And few of us will ever forget what have commonly been called "the lessons of Vietnam."